The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gillian Gibbons, the teacher who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation.

They massed in central Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed, although they did not attempt to stop the rally.

"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.

They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."

Well, according to JohnTaylor88 posts on the previous related thread, Immanuel Kant is cool with this, so, you know, go with the rageboy mob lunatics or you're all female superiority cultural hegemonists.

Something like that, or only more bland and more evil.

When Hannah Arendt was writing about this stuff, I never considered people would interpret her descriptions of evil as things to be emulated, but ain't we loving our diversity now?

And may I mention that some nations simply need to be razed? Seriously. We need to take a squeegee to the whole region, spray it with industrial strength Enlightenment, and start over there. Or else turn it into a giant sheet of glass; at least that would reduce global warming, so, two birds with one stone and all.

Somehow, I don't think this case has ever been about 'blasphemy'. I think it's always been about humiliating a non-Islamic Westerner -- and a female, as a bonus -- and by extension Britain and the West generally.

As such, the baying mobs are theatrical necessities -- see, we can do horrible things to one of you -- but we won't. This time. But one of you is in our control, and has to bow to us.

While we are on the subject of unspeakable evil, consider this from today's WSJ op-ed page...

Born in a slave labor camp...forced to watch his mother executed....

"Under North Korea's "Three Generation Rule," up to three generations of the criminal's family must be imprisoned as traitors....I was a slave under club and fist. It was a world where love, happiness, joy or resistance found no meaning...Although we were a family by fiat, there was nothing familial about us. We showed no affection for one another, nor was that even possible."

---

Of course, the punishment for making "sadeeqi" (moonshine) is typically flogging and jail time. If you're a Westerner, you get deported, instead.

I have just returned from Scottsdale on an incredibly important strategic business trip. Major decisions were made that will impact individuals lives. All of this was of course incredibly high level and confidential.

Unfortunately, no nookie so I am incredibly horny now. As soon as I returned home my first order of business was to wanky (alone unfortunately).

What have I missed this week? What evil liberal organization, person, blog, publication have wronged us? Let's not just get angry but let's get even.

Look, you're all missing the point. We need to respect this other culture. You're just a bunch of cultural imperialists who want to subject... OH, I can't even do it, even in jest! Someone get John in here so he can spout some more bullshit about how we should tolerate barbarity (at least as long as it's directed at women).

It isnt clear how the MCB is disappointed. What would have been a satisfactory result for them: 40 lashes, death, mutilation, deportation? Did they think she was "guilty" of blasphemy? If so, why would they be utterly disappointed with any sentence? Or did they actually believe she was not guilty?

Pogo - you are now sounding like the nuke-Iraq bunch after 9/11. You should be more careful getting so worked up this early in the AM. Bad for your heart.

allens said..."'The Muslim Council of Britain called the sentence completely unjustified. "I'm utterly disappointed with this decision," said the council's Ibrahim Mogra.' Disappointed?"

Indeed - makes you wonder, doesn't it: Is he "disappointed" in this sentence, thinking it "unjust[]" because it's too light or too harsh? You'd hope it wouldn't be necessary to ask, but it really is. Does he disagree with his fellow believers? Why? Where does he think they went wrong in their interpretation? What does he think we should do about it? Is he for the afore-mentioned visit to the Sudanese capital from Her Majesty's Royal Navy?

John said: You should be more careful getting so worked up this early in the AM.There is a time for righteous anger. I believe we are in such an era now. And yes, as a result, I will die early.

I am coming to the point that I don't care much about my own life anymore, but only insofar as I can secure a good life for my children and their children. These lunatics would bother me little if they stayed in their own little cesspool of hate. But they are exporting it, so I have no choice but to resist.

I do not think we can play around anymore. Rageboys killing each other in the streets of Khartoum are one thing. Rageboys with nukes demanding our capitulation are quite another.

It's July 31, 1932.We know what's likely to come next. What do we do? A difficult ethical question, to be sure.

"Johnny Smith: [John has "seen" Stillson become President and trigger WW3, and now is making up his mind how to prevent Stillson's holocaust] If you could go back in time to Germany, before Hitler came to power, knowing what you know now, would you kill him? Dr. Sam Weizak: Is that why you sent for me, to ask me this, uh... this question? ...Johnny Smith: What about my question? Dr. Sam Weizak: Huh? Huh? Oh, you mean the one about Hitler? Johnny Smith: What would you do? Dr. Sam Weizak: I don't like this, John. What are you getting at? Johnny Smith: What would you do? Would you kill him? Dr. Sam Weizak: All right. All right. I'll give you an answer. I'm a man of medicine. I'm expected to save lives and ease suffering. I love people. Therefore, I would have no choice but to kill the son of a bitch. Johnny Smith: You'd never get away alive. Dr. Sam Weizak: It doesn't matter. I would kill him. [lifting drink] Dr. Sam Weizak: Nasdro via. Skol."

Great idea Titus. Anyone here work for Vermont Teddybears? Lets get them to name a special Christmas teddybear "Mohammed"; the proceeds from the sale can be used to help Ms. Gibbon pay for plane fare out of Sudan.

Here's a serious question: this woman was sent to jail for fifteen days for allowing a child to give a bear one of the most common names in the arab world. If every foreign teacher and aid worker in every Muslim country is not now rapidly packing their things and leaving, why not? How can any agency of any civilized nation in good conscience send civilians into harm's way like this, and doesn't anyone who does go now qualify for a "humanitarian lemming of the year" award?

The Muslim Council of Britain has been firmly against this entire travesty from the start. Give them some credit. They're doing exactly what many people here have been demanding for years - they're moderate Muslims vocally dispproving the tyranny of the fringe.

As for thoughts for the rest of the imprisoned - how does it not bother you people that children are imprisoned in miserable conditions along with their mothers!? It's like Newgate 200 years ago.

Pogo said:"And may I mention that some nations simply need to be razed? Seriously. We need to take a squeegee to the whole region, spray it with industrial strength Enlightenment, and start over there. Or else turn it into a giant sheet of glass; at least that would reduce global warming, so, two birds with one stone and all."

Pogo will the sheet of glass reflect heat back to the sun from the earth? Is that why you think your idea will reduce global warming? If your theory is correct, good work man!

Look, it's obvious that this can only be resolved through diplomacy. I think we should immediately dispatch diplomats to the Sudanese capital - perhaps some 16-inch "diplomats" and some sea-launched cruise "diplomats."

tituskk said..."I don't like bears Simon. Bears are too burly and they tend to be doughy."

Right, right, but it's a special situation. I'm sure you could make an exception just this once. Just to show solidarity. ;)

they're moderate Muslims vocally dispproving the tyranny of the fringe.Seriously, but it's been hard to tell there's been much disapproving going on at all. And they're too little, too late, by most measures.

how does it not bother you people that children are imprisoned in miserable conditions along with their mothers!? You must have missed my "squeegee" comment above!

P.S. to Titus:Reading about islamofascists imprisoning Westerners for imaginary infractions tends to put me off my feed in a way that not even wanking can console.

P.P.S. to AJ Lynch:Yes; the sheet of glass reflects heat back to the sun, thereby reducing global warming. Plus, our astronauts will be able to see themselves from orbit when they pass over Saudi Glassabia and Iranomirror.

Before setting foot in any country, it's a question that westerner globetrotters ought to ask themselves as they trek about to this country or that. Which is: Can I handle doing a stretch in jail in this country?

Seriously, but it's been hard to tell there's been much disapproving going on at all.

They really have been vocal from the start on this one.

The Muslim Council of Britain said it was "appalled" at the decision by Sudan.

And...The Muslim Council of Britain was furious at the decision to charge Mrs Gibbons.

"This is disgraceful and defies common sense," said Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari. "There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith.

"The children in Mrs Gibbons's class and their parents have all testified as to her innocence in this matter. We call upon the Sudanese President, Umar al-Bashir, to intervene in this case without delay to ensure that Mrs Gibbons is freed from this quite shameful ordeal."

Both from Ann's second post in an article dated 11/28.

[T]he response in Sudan...has been unusually harsh, said Hassan Aberdeen, a researcher at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

"It seems that the parents made an issue of the teacher calling an animal Mohammed," he said. "Calling him a dog or a pig is insulting, but this is just a teddy bear." From Ann's first post in an article dated 11/26. Not an incredibly rousing denouncement, but it's a start.

And they're too little, too late, by most measures.

Well, it's hard to argue with that. But, a start is a start and I'm encouraged.

I travel internationally quite a bit for work and the two most important considerations for me is 1)am i going to be safe? and 2)am i going to get some foreign hog? If I don't think it is safe I stay in my hotel, go to my meeting and have a driver which I generally talk to minimally. Sometimes my libido is strong but I can keep it in check in order to be safe. Casablanca is an example. I didn't feel safe there but could smell hog all around me but didn't pursue it.

Pogo I completely understanding about your quandry with wanking. It doesn't always help but generally for me it does.

jennifer said..."Seriously, but it's been hard to tell there's been much disapproving going on at all. They really have been vocal from the start on this one."

Have they explained why their coreligionists are wrongly interpreting the religion of peace? What's the basis for their disapproval - that is, do they believe that imposing criminal penalties for "disrespecting the prophet" are wrong, or merely that the teacher's actions were not "disrespecting the prophet"? What action have they advocated in response?

But, a start is a start and I'm encouraged.A good start, jennifer. But I fear they themselves are the fringe, not the majority.

Titus,One thing I have always liked about taking care of older men is seeing how the tyranny of libido often gradually loses its hold, freeing one of its relentless libidinous demands. As proof, I offer that I rarely have older women ask that their husbands be prescribed Viagra. Has never happened once.

It had emerged earlier in the day that complaints about naming the teddy bear Muhammad had come from a fellow member of staff at the exclusive Unity high school where Gibbons worked.

Teachers and clergy from the school's board turned up at court to support Gibbons. Robert Boulos, the school's director, said education ministry officials had originally told him that parents had complained about the naming of the bear. But, he said: "Today I heard that it was a member of the school staff. I was horrified."

This just in:"IN light of news that British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been spared the lash and sentenced to 15 days in a Sudanese choky for naming a teddy in an improper way, Anorak looks at the position of teddy bears in society.

The Sun focuses on ten-year-old Georgia Leyland, who bought her teddy in Harrods and named it Mohamed, in honour of Mohamed al Fayed.

“She’s just a little girl and she doesn’t understand,” says her father Mick. We should not rush to judge. Says Georgia to Gillian: “You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just a teddy and you should be allowed to call it Mohamed – just like I’ve done.”

Why Miss Leyland should name her bear after a business leader is odd in only that more children don’t follow the convention. Teddy bears are, after all, so called in honour of President Theodore Roosevelt, who was fond of a Square Deal and once advocated war with Spain.

Other toys - the Gonk, the Troll and My Little Pony – are rarely if ever named after world figures. It is the teddy bear that occupies a special place.

As such we need clarification on what we can and cannot name our bears. The UN Convention of Teddy Bear naming has yet to reach a consensus. And to be on the safe side all new teddy bears bought this Christmas should be named “Teddy A”, “Teddy B” or “Boutros Boutros”.

Children should resist all urges to name their Barbie doll Hillary or their Bratz collection after Al Qaeda’s leaders…"

I know that the pay there can be quite good, but it's increasingly dangerous and obvious to the most casual observer that no westerner should venture into an Arab muslim nation without being accompanied by a Marine battalion.

It's high time that we stop recognizing their right to the proceeds of the oil that they take from land that happens to be under their feet. If property is just a bundle of rights, then we need to remove the right they claim to the oil they have.

Without all that free money to prop up their regime, they will soon devolve into chaos. And with a few more of those Marine battalions, we can help them on their way.

The Friday riot syndrome has been around for decades. In 1921 British cartoonist David Low published a cartoon with a depiction of Mohammed in it. An imam from Britain protested, decamped to East Asia to foment riots; governments demanded apologies from Britain.

Britain, and Low's paper, told them to stick it. The riots ended. There's a lesson in there.

Have they explained why their coreligionists are wrongly interpreting the religion of peace? What's the basis for their disapproval - that is, do they believe that imposing criminal penalties for "disrespecting the prophet" are wrong, or merely that the teacher's actions were not "disrespecting the prophet"? What action have they advocated in response?

They have a website, you know. Maybe you should check it out. They also have contact information, so you can send them a numbered list of all the things they must do to qualify as moderate Muslims who denounce extremism.

We're certainly barbaric enough in this country...sentencing persons to decades in prison for non-violent and often minor drug offenses...putting men and women into incarceration with full knowledge that many of them will be subject to the ongoing torture of beatings and rape by their fellow prisoners and even sometimes by their captors, and our only response to such knowledge is to joke about it, but not to demand it be stopped...charging ever younger children as "adults" (sic), (thereby insuring these young children also be sentenced to the tortures just mentioned), merely to appease the fears and satisfy the sadism of so many of our ignorant fellow countryfolk, not to mention to puff up the "tough on crime" creds of our equally ignorant, sadistic, and remorseless "public servants" (sic).

Certainly the Muslim fundamentalists are to be condemned for their primitive beliefs and thirst for medieval punishments for blasphemers, but we would certainly see similar travesties if certain factions within our own population were ever to gain unchecked power. Hell, that we're even debating whether waterboarding is "torture" or not, or even if it is, whether it might not be occasionally necessary and appropriate, shows how barbaric we are at heart, (not to mention our own recent history of genocide within our own borders).

putting men and women into incarceration with full knowledge that many of them will be subject to the ongoing torture of beatings and rape by their fellow prisoners and even sometimes by their captors, and our only response to such knowledge is to joke about it, but not to demand it be stopped...charging ever younger children as "adults" (sic), (thereby insuring these young children also be sentenced to the tortures just mentioned), merely to appease the fears and satisfy the sadism of so many of our ignorant fellow countryfolk, not to mention to puff up the "tough on crime" creds of our equally ignorant, sadistic, and remorseless "public servants"

But it only matters when it happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals. When it happens to straight men in this country, people like Simon don't care. That's what equality means to him: straight men getting raped in prison.

Joshua said..."And your basis for this fear [that the Muslim Council of Great Britain are the fringe, not the majority] is what?"

For starters, that they're a private NGO condemning an action by the government of Sudan, an action that is far from unimaginable under any of the governments in the middle east, and which bears many functional similarities to similarly femicidal court verdict in Saudi Arabia.

If the punishment for prisoner on prisoner rape were solitary confinement, permanent solitary confinement, the practice would come to a screeching halt.But then, such punishment would be barbaric, and the noble leftists, who berate Amerika for its brutality, would never allow such punishment. Cute, huh?

I'd ask for an apology, but there's no hurry - I can wait until you've washed the egg off your face.

What egg? I think anything you've written before on the topic is contradicted by what you've said recently. I don't see how a prior inconsistent statement proves you are telling the truth. You just impeached yourself.

What have I "said recently" that "contradict[s]" what I previously said about prison rape?

Oh, I am not going all the way back into the other thread to rehash this. Suffice it to say, your belief that prison VIOLENCE (not prison rape) should be curtailed on formalist grounds isn't the same as "caring" about prison rape. Indeed opposing something on formalist grounds is a way of saying you don't care but for the technicalities of the process. All one has to do is read your link to see you are mischaracterizing the intensity and nature of your own views.

Teachers and clergy from the school's board turned up at court to support Gibbons. Robert Boulos, the school's director, said education ministry officials had originally told him that parents had complained about the naming of the bear. But, he said: "Today I heard that it was a member of the school staff. I was horrified."

Mr. Boulos doesn't keep up on things very well, then, now does he?

That tidbit appeared in news reports earlier this week--BEFORE the hearing. I made particular note of that--and the conflicting stories about the complaint--during my very first comment on the comments thread attached to Althouse's very first post on this topic, on Tuesday.

In fact, it was that tidbit along with other information which led me to conclude that there are real holes in this story and to suspect that the narrative is really about something else.

What's the story with Miss Sarah Khawad?

And what's the story with Boulos?

(As an aside, just because I think it's curious, and why does he keep getting quoted as the head of the school as opposed to the woman listed as the head on the the school's own website?)

"If you think perfection is required in order to object to the atrocities done in the name of radical Islam, then your arguments are utterly irrelevant."

Read more carefully; not only did I explicity state the Muslim fundamentalists should be condemned for their medieval thinking and punishments, I nowhere stated we should be perfect before criticizing others.

However, too many people in our country seem to assume we are the acme of civilization while the Muslims (as a whole) are the nadir of civilization; both we and they are more complex than that, and both we and they contain progressive and regressive strains in our respective cultures. Talk of "razing" their culture is itself revelatory of primitive and genocidal beliefs, and our own current and historical behaviors domestically and abroad reveal our own readiness to behave savagely.

We should criticize medieval thinking and behavior everywhere we see it...including within our own borders, cultural institutions, and government.

As a goodwill gesture in September, coalition soldiers in Khost Province handed out soccer balls decorated with the flags of the world. One of them, the Saudi flag, bears a verse from the Koran. Rumors spread widely that the coalition was, in essence, encouraging Afghan children to put their holy book on the ground and kick it.

This from an article amusingly titled "In Counterinsurgency Class, Soldiers Learn How to Think Like Taliban"

John, your assertion (10:13 AM comment) was that "people like [me]" don't care about prison rape and violence "[w]hen it happens to straight men in this country." That claim fell apart when I demonstrated that not only do I do care about it, but in citing a post from earlier this year (which in turn quoted comments made last year), that my concern isn't ad hoc and preexists the instant case, resting on appropriately neutral, general principles. But apparently that's not good enough for you: no, even though I demonstrably do care about prison rape and violence, you now argue that I dont really care about prison rape and violence because I don't care about it for the right reasons. You're going to try that kind of goalpost-moving intellectual dishonesty and then accuse me of "mischaracterizing" my position or being a "liar"?

I also think that most people will raise an eyebrow at your suggestion that rape is not violence, which seems to me to be the upshot of your differentiation of the two in asserting that me "belief that prison VIOLENCE (not prison rape) should be curtailed."

A claim about violence in general is not a claim about rape specifically. Your post concerns violence in general. It doesn't show that you care about straight men being raped in prison as much as you care about foreign women or foreign homosexuals being oppressed, which was the point.

Furthermore, it doesn't show that you genuinely care -- as in have any empathy or sympathy for their plight -- you essentially say you just want the t's crossed and i's dotted. You explicity note that if the punishments were put into the law, you'd have no problem with them being meted out. Your concern is formal -- that the punishments weren't ordered by the state. By your own logic, you'd have no problem with straight men being raped in prison so long as the state scheduled it in advance and published the rape itinerary.

There have been commenters on this who have done so, and who apparently do think it's OK (or did), but Simon wasn't one of them.

You're throwing out ad homs and strawmen.

Oh--and don't even think about saying "Reader_iam thinks prison rape is OK and doesn't denounce it." Because I've got open in my browser examples of my denouncing it, and people who defend it, in no uncertain terms--here on this very blog.

For starters, that they're a private NGO condemning an action by the government of Sudan, an action that is far from unimaginable under any of the governments in the middle east, and which bears many functional similarities to similarly femicidal court verdict in Saudi Arabia.

And we all know, of course, that the governments of Sudan and Saudi Arabia are representative of the majority of Muslims.

Also, did you really mean to assert that if a hypothetical goverment action is "far from unimaginable" we can fairly conclude it is likely to be supported by the majority?

JohnTaylor88 said..."A claim about violence in general is not a claim about rape specifically. Your post concerns violence in general."

Rape is a subset of violence, ergo prison rape is a subset of prison violence, so any claim about prison violence necessarily includes a claim about prison rape.

"It doesn't show that you care about straight men being raped in prison as much as you care about foreign women or foreign homosexuals being oppressed, which was the point."

If that was your point, it wasn't your argument. Your argument was that when prison rape "happens to straight men in this country, people like Simon don't care." And that claim has been falsified.

"[I]t doesn't show that you genuinely care -- as in have any empathy or sympathy for their plight -- you essentially say you just want the t's crossed and i's dotted."

Another attempt to move the goalposts. Having failed to demonstrate that I don't care about prison rape, you're shifting sub silentio to a quite different argument: that because my primary concern is the ramifications of prison violence for society rather than on individual inmates, I clearly don't have enough concern for the welfare and human rights of individual male inmates. And that may be so, but that wasn't your argument. While you're blustering and moving the goalposts and trying to recast your original post, there is egg dripping down your face and every commenter here is having a good laugh at your expense.

I'll add, by the way -- lest there be doubt -- that I don't mean to suggest that just because I'm concerned about prison violence on formalist grounds, that certainly doesn't mean that I don't care about it from a humanitarian perspecive, or about the impact on individual prisoners. I just haven't written about that before, and so can't cite anything to prove it isn't something ad hoc brought up in response to Mort's point.

Please excuse my cross-posting the same comment I just put up on the earlier thread about this topic. The action has moved over here, and I want to get my two dinars in. Our Dark Age visitor accused me of equating Moslems and insects:

Moslems may not BE insects, but the fixated and relentless mentality on display today in Wahhabist-influencd Islam is indeed insect-like.

What a far cry from the sophisticated and, yes, "enlightened" Islam of the Middle Ages. That was the Islam where St. Francis and the Sultan could have a debate, and St. Francis not only emerge unscathed, but each with a better understanding of and respect for the other. That was the Islam where the Sultan could see in St. Francis his own Sufi mystics with similar ideas and practices. That was the Islam that presided over the unprecedented cultural and scientific efflorescence in Spain, contributed to not only by Moslems but by members of one of the most sophisticated Jewish communities that ever existed.

There are many more examples of how Islam was the leading force for civilization during the Western Dark Ages and beyond.

But look where things are today: The Wahhabi sect, reminiscent of the most extreme Calvinists in the West during the late 16th and 17th centuries, has garnered extraordinary influence over all of Islam. It has largely done this because of Saudi money, and because it maneuvered itself into control of Mecca and Medina.

This sect, with its fanaticism and extreme intolerance, has had a baleful influence. Other branches of Islam have had to follow its ways in order to compete. The situation is reminiscent of the Counter-Reformation in the mid-16th century, where the Catholic Church had to become much more rigorous, disciplined, and, it must be said, intolerant, in order to compete with its Protestant rivals. The most destructive of the Wars of Religion then followed, culminating in the Thirty Years' War, which ultimately set in train the European revulsion against religions extremism.

This revulsion itself helped produce philosophical movements in the 17th century, such as that of Spinoza, which influenced the later 18th century Enlightenment, and thus led pretty directly to the American Constitution's separation of church and state. We in the West are still living out the effects of our own 400-year-old flirtation with extreme fanaticism.

The barbarity on display in Sudan today is not the necessary consequence of Islam, but the consequence of one interpretation of Islam. It is unclear whether Islam would ever go through a Reformation, or, if it did, whether the world could afford it.

What is clear is that we must push back against religious fanaticism however it is expressed and wherever it is found. Imperfect and decadent as Western society may be, we have learned a few lessons along the way, and one of them is that neither God nor man is served by intolerance or cruelty.

Randy (Internet Ronin) said..."[John's] little snout deep [is] in the muck inhaling the blood of innocents destroyed by the beliefs you espouse."

Or if not espouse, then that he at least finds sufficiently tolerable as to not merit his condemnation. As we established yesterday, there are practices, prototypically slavery, that John would be willing to condemn, respectful cultural sensivity be damned. His multiculturalism has limits, and we can infer from those limits his order of priorities. Particularly, we can infer that women's rights (and the plight of this unfortunate individual woman) are of less value to him than multiculturalism, of appearing respectful to the barbarian horde.

Something else to keep in mind that Darfur is in Sudan. Maybe if we'd taken Darfur seriously, and had 17,000 U.S. Marines in-country right now, they'd have had second thoughts about pulling this kind of crap.

"Talk of "razing" their culture is itself revelatory of primitive and genocidal beliefs, and our own current and historical behaviors domestically and abroad reveal our own readiness to behave savagely."I wasn't talking about razing their culture, just their country, and all that lay therein. There culture as it stands is beneath contempt. Sometimes violence is the only remedy that works to remove a threat. We needed it in the Am. Revolution, and during WW2. We need it now. Savagery sometimes can only be met with savagery. If the Islamofascists let it be known they are going to shut the hell up and stop sending planes into buildings and stop looking at taking over the West with nukes, I'll stop agitating to end their attempt.

it's a simple request, really.

JohnTaylor88, you argue very very suspicously like Cyrus Pinkerton.Are you he? I mean you have the passive agressive bullshit down to an art. It's all meaningless crap, but grammatically correct meaningless crap.

our own current and historical behaviors domestically and abroad reveal our own readiness to behave savagely.

Maybe, but our "readiness to behave savagely" is overmatched by those in our own population who decry and work to stop it. It that wasn't so, we'd still have slavery; Muslims would have been lynched by the thousands after 9/11; and women wouldn't be voting right now.

The same cannot be said for the Sudan, or countries that regularly carry out similar barbaric acts.

We should criticize medieval thinking and behavior everywhere we see it...including within our own borders, cultural institutions, and government.

Sure, we should. But Althouse's post is about a school teacher in the Sudan. Not in the US. You might as well expect to see people bring up the faults of, say, Micronesia. Given that, I think your "We're certainly barbaric enough in this country" response is kind of pointless, though predictable.

Talk of "razing" their culture is itself revelatory of primitive and genocidal beliefs

Genocide is the destruction of human life. Cultures are not human lives. The desire to destroy a culture does not imply a desire to kill the people who belong to it. For example, during latter half of the 20th century we focused on destroying the Jim Crow culture of the American South. We succeeded in doing so. No genocide took place.

Pogo, a few weeks ago, JohnTaylor88 posted a comment. A little later, Mortimer Brezny posted in the thread - having made no previous comments in the thread sub nom. Mortimer Brezny - and referred to John's comment as "my earlier comment." I drew my own conclusions.

However, too many people in our country seem to assume we are the acme of civilization while the Muslims (as a whole) are the nadir of civilization; both we and they are more complex than that

Agreed. I even agree with many of OBL's complaints about America. But that doesn't mean its right for me to go off on a rant about rape in US prisons when the topic relates to barbarians shooting a schoolteacher for naming a teddy bear.

This is a troll with pretensions—also a lot of time on his hands. He (or they) were up almost all night writing this crabbed humbug.

However superior John CyMort may think himself, tangling up what he believes are his "right-wing" opponents here, he should realize that many of us are on to his rhetorical tricks. He is too clever by half.

These threads did inspire me to write my previous comment, which is as sincere and untangled as I can make it, so I suppose I shouldn't be too put out at CyMort's sophistries.

Back to the main topic. To quoTE Jim Taranto: "Meanwhile, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have had the following to say about Gibbons's plight: ."

Your argument was that when prison rape "happens to straight men in this country, people like Simon don't care."

You're cherry-picking. The argument was premised ona comparison, as the whole quotation shows: "But it only matters when it happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals. When it happens to straight men in this country, people like Simon don't care." The boldfaced portion is what you omitted to mislead and distort. By your own standards, there is egg dripping down your face.

Rape is a subset of violence, ergo prison rape is a subset of prison violence, so any claim about prison violence necessarily includes a claim about prison rape.

A claim that red is great actually isn't necessarily a claim that scarlet is great. It might be true that what differentiates scarlet from other reds makes the general claim about red inapplicable to it.

I just haven't written about that before, and so can't cite anything to prove it isn't something ad hoc brought up in response to Mort's point.

Maybe I missed it, but there are a couple of relevant points that I haven't seen mentioned in either of these threads.

1) Contrary to what someone further up implied, this type of reaction is not limited to the actions of Westerners. In Nigeria, this type of reaction occurs fairly often, sometimes because a Christian has actually done something the Muslims find offensive or sometimes because someone has it in for a Christian and levels an accusation. Same for Pakistan, although perhaps not to the same degree.

2) Arguments about whether or not this kind of offensiveness toward women (or really toward non-Muslims generally) rises to the level of slavery miss the point. Sudan currently practices *actual* slavery, in addition to this sort of behavior. Saudi Arabia practices de facto slavery with its foreign workers who give up their passports upon arrival.

John/Mort said..."A claim that red is great actually isn't necessarily a claim that scarlet is great. It might be true that what differentiates scarlet from other reds makes the general claim about red inapplicable to it."

A better analog might be that a claim about whether chocolate chip cookies are good necessarily includes a claim about whether chocolate chips are good.

"You're cherry-picking. The argument was premised on a comparison, as the whole quotation shows: 'But it only matters when it happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals. When it happens to straight men in this country, people like Simon don't care.'"

Are you kidding? You actually think that reply helps your case? Are you really trying to finesse this by arguing that your point wasn't that I don't care (which is what you actually wrote, with or without the prelude), but that I care less than I do about what "happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals"? Since I care about it when it happens to men, women, straight or otherwise, in this country or anywhere else, and that point has been demonstrated, your entire claim falls apart, even if you could recast it as you'd like.

Mostly everyone here is laughing at you over this, John, and those who aren't are too busy being horrified that there really is someone out there who embodies the clueless hipster multiculturalist. You've destroyed your credibility here. You're advancing an absurd and untenable position, and are getting transparently desparate in the attempt to wrench yourself off the hook.

Fen, I don't think our MoJo is a deconstructionist. He seems to specialize in playing every classical logical fallacy for his amusement.

His standard rhetorical games are the sort that would fall pale and nugatory on the tiring eye of a sophomore English major. To successfully parody deconstructionist writing requires more knowledge and wit than we've seen from this twerp.

It's a total waste of time to engage him directly. My own strategy is to wait him out if I have a point to make on the subject of the thread.

And you certainly should not get as upset as poor Randy did.

Keep cool fool, like a fish in the poolThat's the golden rule at the Hipster school

MoJo isn't Cyrus; not unless he's adopting different personas to go with his different aliases.

Morty and John make claims. Cyrus doesn't. He makes indirect quasi-claims, like "I know of no Muslim nation which treats women more harshly than men". John's claim that no such nations exist is much, much too direct.

I must get another male beta. This time instead of naming him Chip or Doug or Mark, for the chips, digs, and marks they tend to acquire on their little bodies, I'll name this one Mohammed. By Mohammed I mean the epileptic that went into caves, flipped out, and started a religion based largely on Judaism, and not just any ole Mohammed. I do this to separate myself from the insanity that chars so much of the world.

"Mike Blakemore of Amnesty International said: "The sentence is a mockery of justice and Amnesty International consider Gillian to be a prisoner of conscience. She should be immediately and unconditionally released."

The complaint brought against Gillian Gibbons was an inappropriate use of Sudan’s legal system to deal with what was in essence a disagreement between parents and a teacher. Ms. Gibbons should never have been charged. She should be released immediately.--from a column written by Ibrahim Hooper, of CAIR

Reader, the problem I have with both those statements is that they don't say that the laws themselves are invalid, they say that this incident shouldn't have triggered their application. They do not say (as I read them, at least) that a legal regime that would impose corporal or capital punishment on a peson for "disrespecting the prophet" in any circumstances is quite barbaric. These are a good start, but we should consider what they do not say as well as what they do.

Are you really trying to finesse this by arguing that your point wasn't that I don't care (which is what you actually wrote, with or without the prelude), but that I care less than I do about what "happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals"?

Because you can hear laughter in the thread. It seems making up evidence to bolster your bogus claims is pathological.

Are you really trying to finesse this by arguing that your point wasn't that I don't care (which is what you actually wrote, with or without the prelude), but that I care less than I do about what "happens to foreign women or foreign homosexuals"?

You can care about foreigners at level 4 and about Americans at level 0. Zero is less than 4.

And, yes, I don't think caring about the technicalities of the process of punishing criminals in general is the same as caring specifically about straight men being raped in prison. Look at the fallacy of division wikipedia page.

Warren: Then the way I get it, this Glen and the character he created, much as an author creates a character in a book, was invented as a love object, to take the place of the love he never received in his early youth, through lack of it from his parents. The character was created and dressed, and lives the life the author designs for him to live, and dies only when the author wants him to die. Alton: Correct, except that for the character Glenda to die the elements must be right. Barbara: Should I let him continue to wear girls' clothing, or should I put my foot down? Alton: If you put your foot down he'd only go behind closed doors. Love is the only answer. (Glen or Glenda, 1953)

Not an obsession. I was responding to the actual arguments of the Islam-hating bigots, which singled out foreign gays and foreign women in foreign prisons. Straight American men in American prisons are neither gay nor women, so they serve as a perfect counterpoint.

Gallagher: [introducing John Taylor88 ] He can't sing. He can't dance. He can't tell jokes. There's no end to the list of things he can't do. He's giving up a lucrative career in vinyl repair to be with us tonight. He's a former legal counselor at a halfway house, for girls who won't go all the way(Gallagher: Melon Crazy 1984)

Is that supposed to be an insult Morty? I'm not gay but I wouldn't consider it to be a terrible thing or an insult if I were. That's only a problem for you lefty homophobes and your basic Islamist stuffed animal policemen who hang around with you and Lynn Stewart. You just reveal yourself to be a douchebag.

Is that supposed to be an insult Morty? I'm not gay but I wouldn't consider it to be a terrible thing or an insult if I were. That's only a problem for you lefty homophobes

1. I'm not a lefty.

2. Perhaps you didn't look at the link (is it truncated? Sorry.), but the term "gay" in that humorous poem is not referring to sexual orientation. It's a Civil War era piece of humor. Gay = happy. Don't be so insecure and have such a thin skin.

Well the link didn't work and the implication of only having feeling in your butt seem to point one way, so I apologize if I misunderstood your meaning. However, from your previous postings I still think you are a bigot and a homophobe and can rightfully claim the title of Lord Douchebag. Or should I say Sultan Douchebag.

Well the link didn't work and the implication of only having feeling in your butt seem to point one way, so I apologize if I misunderstood your meaning.

No, the link works. I just tried it. There is a picture of a Union soldier kneeling by a maiden. The point about only his butt have feeling is the humor. He cares more about his own discomfort than the weeping lady. In any event, there was no reason to conclude that I am homophobe. That's just silly.

That aside, it so happens that the Sudanese government is in a major spat with the British government over something far graver than the mere dishonoring of any name could ever be--namely, the continuing genocide in Darfur, the Khartoum government's continued blocking of the deployment of African peacekeepers there, and its equally draggy refusal to serve an international arrest warrant for a Darfur militia leader it prefers to protect. "It is an insult to the Security Council," John Sawers, the British ambassador to the United Nations, said on Nov. 27, that one of the indictees charged with crimes against humanity in Darfur has been appointed a minister in the Sudanese government."

Sawers' statement was embarrassing to Khartoum, as it was meant to be. The next day, the Sudanese government pressed charges against Gibbons.

Please consider reading the whole post (which goes into more than that). Of course, I have no idea if there IS a connection between the Sawers statement and the charging of Gillian Gibbons (two months after the commencement of the Teddy Bear project).

Still, the blogger does a decent job of summarizing the broad backdrop and background.

Theodore Roosevelt: Gentlemen, nothing in this world is certain - absolutely nothing. The fate of the nation will be decided by the American people in November, and the fate of Morocco will be decided tomorrow by me. And now, if you don't mind, I'd just like to be alone with my bear! (The Wind and the Lion, 1975)

I don't remember where I just (meaning, just a bit earlier this evening) read that reports that many of the demonstrators at the embassy in Khartoum were government employees ordered to protest, while Khartoum in general was mostly quiet (given we're talking Khartoum).

But if that's true, and this other stuff has real legs, that this may not really be about Islam, or insulting it, per se.

I cut and pasted the names from a USA Today article from February of this year, because it was quick and easy and I had the tab open. I haven't Googled the names themselves yet, so I don't know whether that was a typo on the newspaper's part, or what.

I keep coming back to that secretary and wondering about her affiliations and connections. I admit I have no basis ... but it keeps bugging me. Call it leftover instinct (which of course can be and has been wrong), but I keep wishing her role would get followed up on, from a reporting standpoint.

First off, I wouldn't call it journalism, per se. More curiosity and speculation, in the sense of questioning. Second, I left journalism (except for some contract editing) and I also left blogging.

I do appreciate Althouse letting me stealth-blog occasionally (and also screw around, the rest of the time).

Also, note that had I not purposely exercised discretion in using a name (deliberately, because I thought a certain cable news network was going way out on a limb and being very, very foolish and risky), I would have screwed the pooch this very day, in another thread on this very blog.

Also, I must emphasize that I do NOT know if events are connected in Sudan. I don't know if there's any correlation at all, and--in a nod to the lawyers around (and all the lawyers I have ever known)--even if there is, "correlation is not causation." A very useful mantra for journalists, bloggers, commenters & etc., as well.

Causation may not be proven here, but given everything that's happened with Darfur, using this unfortunate teacher as a cat's paw to help pry off the grip of the "international community" is a reasonable working hypothesis.

I suspect she'll be sprung this weekend, and things will get real quiet in Darfur for quite a while.

And if in so doing they waste a few neo-Nazi Islamist fuckwits then so be it.

But if they also manage to take out some bleeding heart liberal, multi-culturalist, 'It's only their sweet way of doing things' liberal sickos....well Mission Accomplished as I believe your guy once said.